Bush T-shirt woman forced off US flight
A US woman was booted off a flight for wearing a T-shirt with an expletive and images of President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Lorrie Heasley of Woodland, Washington, said she planned a civil rights complaint against Southwest Airlines over the action at Reno-Tahoe International Airport, halfway through her scheduled trip from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon.
“I have cousins in Iraq and other relatives going to war,” Heasley said. “Here we are trying to free another country and I have to get off an airplane … over a T-shirt. That’s not freedom.”
Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said several passengers complained about the shirt.
Heasley, a 32-year-old wood saleswoman, said passengers began complaining after she and her husband, Ron, moved to the front of the cabin in Reno.
She agreed to cover the words with a sweatshirt, but when the sweatshirt slipped while she was trying to sleep, she was ordered to wear her T-shirt inside-out or leave.
She and her husband left.
They arrived home in a rented car yesterday.
McInnis said Southwest rules allowed the airline to deny boarding to any passenger whose clothing was “lewd, obscene or patently offensive”.
